Gone Away
by howdoievenenglish
Summary: Dirk notices his relationship with Jake doesn't seem to be working out. One-shot.


You are timaeusTestified. You are sixteen, and you are terrified. You are clingy and overbearing. You are pushing him away, you can just feel it. But you can't stop. You can't suppress the nagging twinge in your heart and it's making you neurotic. With every responseless minute that goes by, your anxiety grows.

It didn't start out like this. At first everything was fine. It was great. So you kept doing whatever you had done to get him in the first place. Which was winging it. Strider-style.

Your brother probably could have done it better. He was cool, smooth, suave. You, on the other hand, were not. But you hid it, well enough you thought, behind bizarre social graces and labored metaphors. It was as close to cool as you could get. And he seemed to be okay with that. In fact, he even seemed to like that about you. He even got so excited when you jokingly suggested he get a matching tattoo that you just had to do it for him.

And he was happy.

For a while.

Then everything started going downhill. You detected it probably even before he did. His disposition was fading. The adventures together, the tattoo, your false bravado that everyone thought was so damn charming.. He didn't seem to like any of it anymore. He was starting to slip. And with everything you did, he was being pushed farther away.

Your heart was about to break. You were shaking and there was an ache deep in your chest. You knew you would be fine if you could just back off for a while and give him some space. But you couldn't stop worrying and he wasn't answering why was he ignoring you it wasn't that bad was it and did something happen because he really should have been messaging you back and he was always answering you back almost immediately before all this happened and oh god you knew you were just screwing this up _so badly_ but couldn't help yourself. Your relationship was dying and the only thing you could do was make everything worse.

But you were really hoping somehow things would somehow be okay.

For now, you would just have to go adventuring alone. You always disliked going alone. You couldn't shake a feeling of foreboding every time you went solo. You just knew you'd die because you'd have to save somebody's ass. And since you've already died once, this is the last life you've got.

You know you're wasting your energy. You'd rather do an acrobatic fucking pirouette off of the Empire State building than lose him. But you don't know about the Empire State building because you've never been to New York.

You hear a beep and a translucent screen appears in front of your face.

_Dirk._

You stop in your tracks once you see the green text; your heart leaps into your throat and you realize you're shaking again. You're excited to see a new message from him, but you're cautious. Afraid of what this could mean. What it probably does mean.

You respond anyway.

_Jake._

_Where have you been_, your fingers are itching to type. But you don't let them. This is the first time in far too long that he has answered you. You can't screw it up now. You wait for him to answer.

_Dirk, I need to talk to you._

Your hands shake worse than before but you keep a straight face, as if he could see you. You always keep a straight face. Whatever happens, you deal with it inwardly. You don't understand how your friends can be so open and wear their hearts on their sleeves, but it seems to make them more endearing. Although sometimes you feel detached from them. You've never been able to lose yourself in your emotions like they have. Maybe that was why you were so drawn to Jake. He was so energetic, so full of life. He made you feel younger when you always felt so god damn old. Adventuring always put a smile on his face, and you were always so eager to make him happy.

Maybe you overdid it. Maybe he needed some space. Maybe you were selfish in trying to keep him to yourself. You should have reminded him about Jane's birthday party, at least.

You reach the edge of a cliff. You wonder what it would be like to just fall. How it would be to die that kind of a death. Falling doesn't seem like such a scary death. Maybe you could commit suicide. You hesitate a little before you take a running start and jump off, wondering briefly what death is like before your body kicks into action and you land safely, hurting your feet in the process. Ha. Like a Strider would commit suicide. You're too busy settling unfinished business and saving everyone else's ass to think too much about your own.

Even now, you don't think twice about making the long journey to Jake's world. Mainly because the air here is not breathable and the last time he visited you, the ditz forgot his gas mask.

Your chest tightens as you remember that first visit. He was so excited to meet you, so talkative, and there was a gleam in his eye.

You're not looking forward to meeting him this time.

You wonder exactly where you went wrong. You've made countless mistakes. You've gone over every one of them in your head. But without any input from Jake, there's no way to know for sure. You just hope there's a chance for you to work it out. You show up at your usual meeting place. Jake's not there, so you wait for him, reflecting on the time you've spent since entering the Medium. You chide yourself for your mistakes, your miscalculations, all of the bad qualities that your stupid auto responder shades keep throwing back in your god damn face. You just want to break the shades in half. Maybe then you would hate yourself a little less. Damn things could probably kill you anyway. You were starting to regret that promise you made regarding prototyping your sprite.

"Dirk?"

You turn around. He's late. He probably took his time. Judging from the look on his face and his avoidant body language - he refused to look you in the eye - he was feeling guilty. You could tell he wanted to say something but was hesitating. You take a step forward.

"Jake."

You voice is stern, but that's only because a lump was starting to swell in your throat. You wonder if he notices your limbs shaking.

"Golly, Dirk. I don't know where to start."

You wait patiently for him to find the words he's looking for. He realizes you're not going to respond, so he continues. "I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, but all I've ever gotten was your silly auto-responder and… Well I shouldn't say it's silly. After all, it's not gentlemanly to dismiss something you've worked so hard on, and Jane said—"

"Jake." You interrupt his nervous ramble. He looks at you expectantly, as if you were going to say something to save him from embarrassing himself. Clearly he hasn't had much practice talking with somebody face-to-face. You raise an eyebrow; he clears his throat. "Right, well. I figured that this should be said to you in person, a good chap like you deserves that much at least."

You nod. A part of you just wants to get this overwith.

"Well, Dirk. Try to understand. Erm. Oh wow I'm botching this up pretty badly! I need to stop being such a drip and get this off my chest. Rip off the bandage, so to speak."

You cross your arms, you face still as stoic as always. But just underneath the surface, a normally unbreakable dam is flooding; if you don't want to make a scene, you have to get to the end of this soon.

"Right. Silly me." Jake takes a deep breath, steels his nerves. He's not used to breaking the news gently, at least not in person. You want to tell him you don't need to be gentle, that it'll hurt the same either way. You swallow hard against the painful lump in your throat.

"Dirk, you're suffocating me."

You knew it. You're such a fucking idiot. Your AR never helped much either. Why did you ever build those stupid glasses.

"I know I should have come to you with this sooner, I realize that now, but I'm an adventurer and a dapper gentleman like me prefers to fly solo. You understand, don't you, dude?"

You nod, clenching your teeth to keep your lip from wobbling.

"Right, you're a smart lad. And I think that even though roughhousing with you was fun and all—"

They were some of the best times of your life (even though you were going easy on him the entire time).

"—we were always better off as friends. Weren't we, Dirk?"

His eyes are starting to water and you feel like you're going to break into two halves. He looks at you, expecting a reply. You nod and say "Mm-hm" in your most steady voice even though you're not okay with it, you don't want to pretend that you are, you feel like you're falling to pieces, oh god can he see you shaking, surely he can hear your heart cracking over and over, can you walk away yet, all you want to do is walk over to him and make him smile and forget about all of this nonsense and hug and kiss and laugh like you used to but you can't because it's over and it hurts, it hurts so much.

It's over and you can't have him back because you're petty and jealous and clingy and you were charming enough to get him but not charming enough to keep him and you aren't strong enough to deal with this, you've had suspicions for weeks but nothing could prepare you for this you're so close to just breaking down and losing it and you can't take this you can't.

You clear your throat and take a breath. "Anything else?"

Jake shakes his head and turns to walk away, head down. He never heard the pain in your voice. He never saw the tear roll down your taut skin.

You wait until he's out of earshot before you let yourself break down completely. Tears come flooding down your cheeks and you let out a series of unattractive whines and gasps. You drop to your knees, fight to regain control of your breath, and lay down on your side. You've never felt pain like this.

Three years. You've loved him for three years. He was the only person who made you feel complete. He was your everything. And now he's gone, leaving nothing but an agonizing hole in your chest and old memories. After only a couple of months, your entire world has crumbled to pieces around you.


End file.
